Flickering background blur in Android Auto player screen for livestreams

[RonaldKieftNPO]

Version

Media3 1.10.1

More version details

No response

Devices that reproduce the issue

Desktop head unit in combination with Android device with version 17.2.662634-release of Android Auto app. I noticed that in this case the desktop head unit will have the "new" UI for the player screen:

android_auto_flickering_player_screen.mov

Devices that do not reproduce the issue

Desktop head unit in combination with other Android device with version 17.2.662444-release of Android Auto app. I noticed that in this case the desktop head unit will have the "old" UI for the player screen:

Reproducible in the demo app?

No (the demo app does not have the possibility to play a dash livestream)

Reproduction steps

Steps to reproduce:

1. Play a dash livestream and go to the Android Auto player screen
2. The background blur will flicker each 2 seconds
   • The 2 second interval matches the minUpdatePeriodMs of the dash manifest

Notes:

1. The flickering also occurs when playback is paused
2. The flickering does not occur when on-demand content is played
3. The flickering does not occur with our current version of the app which does not yet use media3 but uses media compat
4. The flickering does not occur when the desktop head unit has the "old" UI for the player screen

Expected result

The background blur will not flicker when playing a livestream

Actual result

The background blur will flicker each 2 seconds

Media

Our dash livestreams are protected and authorization is needed before they can be played. Hopefully this issue can be troubleshooted without the requirement to access our dash livestreams, but otherwise I will see how access can be arranged.

Bug Report

• You will email the zip file produced by adb bugreport to android-media-github@google.com after filing this issue.

[marcbaechinger]

Thanks for reporting!

I can't give you a good answer I'm afraid. This is not an issue with Media3 I'd say. It's expected that the player emits events when the live timeline is updated. Looks like some UI is redrawn to produce that flickering. We are not involved with the app on the head unit I'm afraid, so we can't really help.

I think best would be to connect with the Auto team. I found this link which is worth looking at. It gives you the buganizer component of the car app which sound like a good start. https://developer.android.com/training/cars/apps/library/report-issue It's fine to refer to this bug here and say we can't help in such a case.

Sorry for not having a better answer.

[RonaldKieftNPO]

Thank you for the quick response!

I have created the following bug ticket for the Auto team: https://issuetracker.google.com/u/1/issues/539283713